Saturday, November 25, 2006

I'm sorry I haven't been updating, but I'm having final exams now. Having said that, I shouldn't be here, but I was reading Omni's latest entry at Random Curiosity and was recommended to this trailer that took my breath away.

I admit to knowing nuts about Makoto Shinkai or 秒速５センチメートル (5 centimeters per second), which apparently had been promoted sometime ago. It is an animation movie consisting of 3 (related) short stories:

第1話 桜花抄 (Oukashou)第2話 コスモナウト (Cosmonaut)第3話 秒速5センチメートル (Byousoku 5 senchimetoru)All I know is that I watched the trailer, am so impressed with every aspect of the movie that I know this is THE animation I must watch in 2007. The animation is incredibly fluid, the colors are so beautiful and serene, the music is so emtionally provoking, the voice acting pulled heart strings. I think the art is absurdly high quality and the best I've seen. It reminds me of Miyazaki's Spirited Away. From the trailer, it seems to me Byousoku 5 Centimeters might surpass Spirited Away. Here are some images from the official site to justify why:

Monday, November 06, 2006

It tells about a girl called Tae, who idolizes her childhood friend whom she adoringly calls Kei-chan. Tae wants to keep her Kei-chan (who is a guy btw) happy at all times, and vows to punish anyone who will hurt him. Stalker-lah, this girl.

Kei-chan moved in to the house next to Tae's since young, and their bedrooms are facing each other, so they often knock on each other's window and get along pretty well. Apparently, Tae adored Kei-chan so much, she would do anything for him, even went to the ends to clean her room and borrow it to Kei-chan for the night so that he can have sex with his girlfriend. Like... what??!

So as Kei-chan tries to make a move on his girlfriend, Tae sits out at the playground, where Hone-Onna dropped by on purpose to find out why Tae would do what she did. Tae's logic: she wants to keep Kei-chan as a very good friend forever, protect him, and give him all the happiness she can give him; but she will never get intimate with him. Hone-Onna was blown away by her weird logic.

But it seems Kei-chan's girlfriend dislike the fact that Tae always look at Kei adoringly, thus refuses to have sex, unless he takes her to Hawaii. (I'm stupified.) So Kei-chan pulls a long face to Tae, whining that his cold girlfriend dumped him cause he couldn't give her sex in Hawaii. Tae, sad to see her beloved Kei-chan depressed, tried to comfort him, but Kei-chan took advantage of her sympathy and pushed her down for his helping of pity sex. (wth?) It goes without saying, Tae obliged, but becomes emotionally shattered because she thinks it's the end for her and Kei-chan. She thinks a relationship is over once you become intimate.

The next night Kei-chan was eager to hop over to her room for another meal of pity sex, but this time Tae refused to answer his call, because she thinks it's over between them. Kei-chan insisted on seeing her and tried to climb over her window and pry open, which Tae slides open suddenly, causing him to fall down to his death. Tae become horrified to think that she had caused Kei's death.

In school the following day, Kei's ex-girlfriend snickered around about how Kei's death would be a big loss to his #1 fan, Tae. Having heard the insinuations and previously angered by the fact that ex-girlfriend had hurt Kei-chan, Tae's blood boil, and she pulled the red string on Ai's straw doll...

...sending ex-girlfriend to hell.

............

Seriously, I don't know what to think of this plot. Tae is likely to be slightly mentally sick, as in obsessed. She's totally obssessed with protecting Kei-chan from being hurt, and also totally warped in her no-intimacy logic. While ex-girlfriend was a bit mean, I do not think she really deserved to go to hell, especially with the request coming from Tae. Whatever occurred between her and Kei should remain both their problems... Tae is, in my opinion, interfering.

On the other hand, I would think Kei is worst off as a person. Not only he took advantage of Tae's kindness (and adoration), he manipulated her sympathy to obtain sexual satisfaction. I mean, boy, get some self-control.

On a side note, the mysterious little shoujo made a brief appearance again, this time to tease Hone-Onna that she is an old obasan. Of course, it pissed Hone-Onna badly.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Story lineOn the story-telling, the story lines were mostly original, i.e. not from the manga, but what was a let down is the stories are so boring. They lacked the excitement factor, are very draggy, and simply put, BORING. A lot of time was wasted on scenes that do not bring any progress to the story. The writers keep returning to the places Syaoran & co. had been before in the first season, and in every new world they traveled to, writer-san used back the same supporting characters. It gets r-e-a-l-l-y mundane with the recycling of characters. Character development was not very satisfactory either... actually, there wasn't much character development at all. All of the main characters remain pretty much stagnant.

Although there are many episodes I find dull, I do have some favorite episodes. One is of the Ashura-ou arc and the other is the original Chibi episode. The Ashura-ou arc has some good art, animation and soundtrack, so the few episodes are quite enjoyable.

The Chibi episode is super cute. For this episode, the art really ruled. Chibi Syaoran, Sakura, Fye and Kurogane kawaiii!!!

Animation & artThe animation and art paled in comparison to the first season. There were alot of still scenes, especially the fighting scenes... there were mostly images rather than animation. What was terribly disappointing was the animation done stripped the meaning and emotions off the plot Clamp had placed into the manga. There were many scenes that could have done better to convey the emotional depth delivered by Clamp in the manga. If you had read the recent manga chapters, you will find the anime spastic.The art wasn't very consistent either. Overall the art is pretty decent, but there were some scenes involving Yuuko and Mokona that were so poorly drawn they looked horrible.

Makes you wanna cry, "Nooooo.... Clamp's artwork!!!" However, the one thing that didn't quite change was the colors. I still like the colors they used for Tsubasa Chronicle S2. The tones were just right, and the contrast were pretty good.

SoundtrackThis is probably the only saving grace for Tsubasa Chronicles S2. Kajiura Yuki superbly injected excitement with her music, accurately at the right moments, when the animation failed to entertain. FictionJunction YUUKA and FictionJunction KAORI gave commendable insert songs, Aikoi and Dreamscape respectively, both of which are featured in the Tsubasa Chronicles OST 3 and 4. The opening and ending were quite nice too, but not entirely outstanding. Overall, the standard of the soundtrack is pretty much maintained from the first season.

SeiyuuThe voice acting were pretty much maintain over, but I felt that they could have done better. At some scenes, the voice acting doesn't quite seem to match the emotions of the scene, so they sound kind of weird. I think the Sayako Ohara did quite a good job with Yuuko, her acting matched the circumstances very well. Unfortunately, the main characters' seiyuu left more to be desired.

If Tsubasa Chronicles is going to continue with season 3, I hope that either they faithfully follow the manga OR they better come out with really good original stories. If the standard of season 2 is to be carried over to season 3, I think TRC anime is going to be a real bore. Heck, the closing for the season 2 finale was pretty crappy if you ask me.